


Nothing To Hold On To

by avislightwing



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (or rather... not), Angst, Coping, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 12:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17080235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: And it was the best of all possible worlds, wasn’t it? An endless journey ended, a multiverse saved, a love lost and then found again. A purpose.So why did he feel so shitty?(Barry tries to hold himself together. He's not doing a very good job.)





	Nothing To Hold On To

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueshine/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Requested was Barry having trouble adjusting to being a reaper, though this is more Barry having trouble adjusting in general. (May write a second part, Barry Angst 2: Electric Boogaloo.)
> 
> Both written to and named after Sleepless by The Decemberists.

And it was the best of all possible worlds, wasn’t it? An endless journey ended, a multiverse saved, a love lost and then found again. A purpose.

So why did he feel so shitty?

Barry rubbed his eyes and sat up, fumbling for his glasses from the bedside table, then, for good measure, turning the lamp on. The usual sight greeted him: a comfortable bedroom with a desk stacked with papers, a dresser and a closet, nothing out of the ordinary. Lup was on a mission tonight, so it was just him, but she’d checked in with him before bed. It was only four in the morning, and she’d said she’d likely not be back until sunrise.

Nothing was wrong.

Everything was wrong.

Barry leaned forwards, forehead against his bent knees. He knew why he was awake. It was the same reason he’d woken up in the middle of the night every night Lup was gone – most nights she was there, too. He’d jerked awake to the vertigo of missing the last step of a staircase (of realizing his friends were afraid of him, of falling off the _Starblaster_   with the memory of Lup’s face disappearing from his mind, of finding a note reading _Back Soon_ , of hearing nothing but the crackle of radio static where there should’ve been the brusque, deliberate voice of Ptolemy from IPRE mission control) –

Sometimes it felt like Barry had been falling for over a hundred years.

The vertigo was wearing off by now, but he knew he wasn’t going to get back to sleep. Not with Lup gone and the remnants of a nightmare that had dissolved into static as he woke up still hanging around him like a ghost. (He’d been a ghost for ten years, even when he’d had a body. An insubstantial thing, barely a person, clinging to a coin that told him what to do and an emptiness he didn’t know the origin of. That isn’t living, is it?) So he got up and pulled on the bathrobe he’d thrown over the chair nearby for this purpose, put on the yellow duck slippers sitting by the bed – a Candlenights gift from Magnus the previous year – and headed down to the kitchen.

The first time this happened, during their century-long voyage, Lup had made what she called her and Taako’s “anti-nightmare juice” – hot chocolate with ginger and cinnamon and just a tiny bit of vanilla. “I could make it with soy milk, you know,” she’d said doubtfully. “Aren’t you lactose intolerant?” He’d assured her he was but not _that_   intolerant. He’d been lying, but it was worth it. Lup had eventually developed a version that didn’t upset his stomach, and after that, every time they were both up in the middle of the night, she’d make it for them.

They’d had a lot of nightmares, over that hundred years.

He’d never learned to make it the way she did. So on nights like this, when she was gone and he was here, he filled the kettle with water and made himself chamomile tea instead. He remembered once, not long after Lucretia had erased their memories and he was in his first body (the first time he forgot – the first of many, many times) he’d ordered a hot chocolate in a bar. He knew he couldn’t have dairy, but something in him made him drink it anyways, and he’d spent that night very sick to his stomach, head spinning in a way that could never be caused by any amount of milk.

He’d stuck with tea from then on.

The teakettle whistled, and he poured the hot water over his teabag. He picked up the mug and carried it into the living room. It never really seemed right to be in the kitchen without Lup.

(She’s just gone on a mission. She’s just gone on a mission, she’ll be back -)

Barry took a very shaky breath and let it out again. There was no reason for him to be feeling like this. He wasn’t the one who forgot his twin sister; he wasn’t the one who spent ten years trapped in an umbrella; he wasn’t the one who lost his wife. (Not really. She came back. She always came back, now. She’d always come back before, though, until she hadn’t.)

Gods.

Barry slumped down on the couch, hands cupped around his mug, trying to will the heat to pass through his hands into the rest of him. Trying to tell himself that he didn’t need to call Lup, that she was probably in the middle of something, but that she’d be back soon.

(Back soon, back soon.)

(She was never coming back, was she?)

Barry winced and shook his head, a sharp little jerk meant to dismiss those thoughts. Lup was fine, he was fine, Taako and Magnus and Merle and Lucretia and Davenport, they were all fine.

(Barry’s a very bad liar, even to himself.)

(When did truth start to feel like falling?)

Barry realized, suddenly, that his stone of farspeech was buzzing, a tinny voice emanating from it. Lup. No – Taako.

“ _You there, Barold?_ ” he could hear Taako saying. “ _Lup’s crashing here for the night, it was a tough gig, I guess, but she wanted me to let you know where she was, said you were probably awake._ ”

(Barry should probably answer that, shouldn’t he?)

“ _C’mon, pick up, I know you’re awake._ ” Taako’s voice was a little sharper, now. “ _If you don’t pick up I’m gonna get worried, and so’s Lup, and that sucks, and I’ll have Krav tear a reality hole into your house even though he says it’s rude_.”

(He just – couldn’t quite let go of the mug. Couldn’t quite bring himself to reach down and grab the stone. Couldn’t remember how.)

“ _…I’m comin’ over,_ ” Taako’s voice said.

There was a tearing sound, and Barry flinched, and then Taako was stepping into his living room. He was wearing footie pajamas, and waved goodbye to Kravitz, who was wearing silk pajama pants and a very faded t-shirt that said, in large letters, DON’T DO NECROMANCY.

“Yikes,” Taako said. “Barry? You okay?” He snapped his fingers several times in front of Barry’s nose.

Barry shook his head.

“…Yeah, didn’t think so.” Taako plucked the mug from Barry’s numb hands and put it on the coffee table, scooting a coaster under it at the last minute. “Okay. All right. Uhh, I’m gonna ask – gonna want you to breathe for me for a minute. Deep breaths.”

Barry took a breath obediently – and then another, quicker one, and he hadn’t had to breathe in his lich form, but now he couldn’t get the air into his lungs quick enough. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Want to tell me what’s goin’ on, m’man?” Taako said. “’Cause this isn’t a – a good look on you. ‘Nother level of freakout, which is saying something for you.”

“Yeah,” Barry agreed. “Sorry, Taako, I don’t know, I just… This happens sometimes. I’m fine.”

(He’s never been good at lying to Taako, either.)

“I rolled an eleven, Barry,” Taako said.

Barry laughed, a short, sharp, panicked thing, and rubbed a hand over his eyes again. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me,” he admitted. “I keep… it seems too good to be true, I guess? That it’s all over? That we won? My brain doesn’t seem to believe it.”

“I mean…” Taako fiddled with the zipper on his pajamas. “Two different things there.”

“Huh?”

“Us winning and it being all over.” Taako muttered something under his breath about hating to be the one who _understands emotions_   here, and Barry gave a wan smile. “Not the same thing. We won, pretty, uh, decisively, the Hunger got pretty well and fucked. But it’s not – all over. We’re still fuckin’ living, aren’t we? All that shit still happened. Still lost all our… fuckin’ memories. Not like that all just goes away.”

“I dunno, Taako,” Barry said. He leaned over onto Taako’s shoulder, and Taako didn’t pull away, just sighed and tossed an arm around Barry’s shoulder. “I guess I thought it would fix itself.”

“What would?”

“Everything.” Barry shrugged. “You know. Lup and I have bodies now, and a pretty good job, and even a house that’s not on a spaceship, and I thought everything would all be all right.”

“You, Barold, thought everything would just work itself out. Fuckin’ figures.” Taako knocked a gentle fist between Barry’s eyes. “It took you almost fifty years to get together with Lup. It hasn’t even been a year since the ess-ay-ess. Since, us, you spent ten years as a lich, on your own in a cave.”

“I mean, when you put it that way –”

“When you put it _any_   way.” Taako’s voice softened, just a little. Just enough that Barry could tell. “Can’t expect everything to fix itself overnight. Again, hate to be the voice of reason, but it’s not like my night terrors went away once I got a skeleton boyfriend and remembered my sister. Doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m a grown-ass man, Taako,” Barry started, but Taako cut him off.

“And I’m a grown-ass elf, and fought the embodiment of darkness and despair and whatever the fuck for a hundred years, and you think that just? Goes away? Poof, blinks out of existence, reset back to cycle zero? Nah, homie, give me a break.” Taako patted Barry’s shoulder awkwardly. “We both got Lup back, but it’s not like we got those ten years we didn’t have her.”

“Yeah.” Barry took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes with his bathrobe sleeve. (When had he started crying?) “Yeah, I guess so. I guess it’s too much to expect that everything would go back to normal.”

“And what the fuck is normal?” Taako said. “Normal for us was flying around on a – a loveboat and never dying. Normal packed its bags and left a long time ago.”

“Yeah. You’re right. Jesus, when did you get so smart?”

“Uh, I published a book _full_   of smart things, I’ve been smart for _ages_ ,” Taako said.

Barry smiled, a little. “Smart things that were a load of bullshit,” he said. “For real. Thanks. I… thanks.”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Taako didn’t immediately get up. “Listen. I get that you have your whole reaper gig, and you don’t want to harsh mine or Lup’s jam or whatever, but maybe, like. Talk to us. Or to somebody. Me, Lup, it can be fuckin’ – fuckin’ Lucretia if you want, I don’t give a shit, but talk to somebody. ‘Cause, Barold? This, here? Not fine.”

“Yeah, okay,” Barry said. “Um, would you… would you mind staying here until Lup gets back? Maybe?”

“I, uh, I think – I’ll do you one better,” Taako said. “Lup’s already over at mine and Krav’s place. Just open up a death portal and take us both over there. Big ol’ happy family reunion.”

“Yeah,” Barry said, and he felt not so much a weight lift from his chest as a steadying of the ground beneath him. “That sounds real good, Taako, thanks.”

“Mi casa es su casa, duh,” Taako said, waving that off. “We lived together for, like, a hundred years. Little more can’t hurt.”

And as Barry summoned his scythe and cut a portal through to where Kravitz and Lup were waiting, he considered the possibility that it could be the best of all possible worlds and still not be _fine_. Not yet. That maybe he needed more time before things were fine, and he didn’t still feel like he was constantly in free-fall.

Nothing was wrong, and everything was wrong, but he had time.


End file.
